Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England, episode 225 matters great and personal.

Just to remind you that I am a proud member of the Gora podcast network, this month's

featured podcast is a bit of a change from our normal thing, it's called Tiny Vampires.

Tiny vampires is a podcast about disease, science and blood sucking insects. Every episode is driven

by listeners question and the scientific investigation that answers that question. It's available

in all the usual places and at tinyvampires.com. So if blood sucking and science are your things,

check it out. Now that everyone over the last couple of weeks, we've decorated the scenery on

the set behind our play with the story of the late medieval church and the astounding story of

Luther and the church's bungled attempts to crush his message. So now we're going to dive into some

of the most dramatic years of English history, a play with a rich team of players. It's got

fanatics like Fisher, Moore, Tindale, Catherine of Oregon. Ruthless politicians locked in a vicious

struggle for power like Woolsey, Cromwell, Norfolk. We begin to hear about some of the characters

that will run through the English Reformation like Cranmer, Stephen Gardner, Reginald Poll.

And there are all the old guard you've come to know and to love the nobility and courtiers gathered

around the king. Thomas Berlin, George Berlin, Thomas White, Francis Brian, and out over all of them

there's the fascinating and controversial figure of Anne-Belin. And while we have all these

characters these years see changes in England which, though certainly unfinished and tentative in

many ways by the end of Henry's reign, are as fundamental as any in English history. Seriously,

I struggle to name any comments in English history which define England as much as the

break with Rome. So many consequences flow from it in her identity since a nationhood

relationship to all the powers of Europe as well as the religious life for inhabitants.

So look, I don't want to oversell it. But despite the fact that there can be few bits of

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